The Final Countdown (1980)

Published: June 17, 2019, 10 a.m.

Episode 156: This is our second pairing of time-travel films, and we're starting with a film that casually examines the ultimate question of time travel: If you can go back in time and change the past, should you? Directed by Don Taylor and starring Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, Katharine Ross, James Farentino, Ron O'Neal, and Charles Durning, this film follows the U.S.S. Nimitz, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which is somehow catpulted back in time to December 6th, 1941, the day before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. They have the means to stop one of the worst attacks on American soil in history. Should they? Will they? We won't tell you (you'll have to watch the movie for that) but we will tell you all about the production and how the film ended up being such a love-letter to the U.S. Navy that they've used it as a recruiting tool!